This segment shall be entitled: ANDREW'S ARTSY ARTNESS!
Well, shortly after the events recorded in my previous blog entry, Madeline, Trish and I decided to visit the Guggenheim.
Madeline and Trish: "We're going to the Guggenheim!"
Andrew: "Okay!"
We agreed to meet there at 6:00pm. They left early and I took my time getting ready. This included eating, showering, plotting out a subway route to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), dressing, double checking the address of the MOMA, cleaning some dishes, pocketing the MOMA information securely, and heading out. I made all my connections brilliantly and arrived at 11 West 53st, the location of the MOMA, with about 15 minutes to spare! I bought myself the juiciest fallafel I have ever eaten - from a street vendor no less! - and waited outside the entrance for the arrival of Trish and Madeline, delicious fallafel juice dripping slowly down my chin...
And...
Did you know you can cab from the MOMA to the Guggenheim in about 15 minutes! It even cuts through central park! Very scenic and fun!
The Guggenheim, for the uninitiated (though you be few), is a large spirally conch-like building with lots of paintings stored inside it. Outsiders, or Non-Guggenheimers as they are called in technical ARTSY language, are permitted for a nominal fee to stare at these paintings, smell them, and pretend to understand their profound significance.
Once you have crossed the invisible and eldritch threshold of "The Guggenheiming", denoted by the Sacred Doors of Revolving, you become temporarily endowed with magical Guggenheim abilities. These abilities enable you to grow steadily tired and cranky and bored over the span of only two hours, culminating in almost total banality.
Using awesome pneumonic techniques of mental cognition, I created a secret chamber in my mind wherein I stored three of the most exquisite paintings from the Guggenheim collection. These paintings, perfectly preserved in my memory, shall now be projected by the miracle of ARTSY technology onto your computer screen.
Painting, the First:
Two Seated Children (Claude and Paloma)
by
Pablo Picasso
Now, before I begin critiquing this painting, let me just say that if I were to write a manifesto for Art Criticism, it would read something like this:
STOP! The unfertile nebulous meandering commentary of bygone years must now cease, under the spectacular moon of new nightly nocturnality! STOP! Pilgrims of the mind! And sow your seeds in fecund loam! The Tyranny of Grist and Grind here-now ENDS!
Of course, if I were ever to write a manifesto for Art Criticism it would probably never get read. Either that, or people would read it with that look of pained forebearance that I so often get.
So, instead, I'll just state my ARTSY prejudices: Art is fun and loose and bendy and stuff. Art Criticism, since it's about art, should be those things too.
Now to begin: ANDREW'S ARTSY ARTNESS!
So basically this Picasso painting really caught my eye. It was sandwiched between a bunch of other austere Spanish paintings of children, both the seated and non-seated varieties, doing such exciting and insightful things as: 1. Staring Directly Ahead; or, 2. Trying to Look Like Adults. Oh yeah, the painters were like El Greco, that other dude who painted royalty, what was his name... and like Velasquez, and probably someone called Sanchez, and Dali too, but you might want to double check the Sanchez.
But this painting.. oh wait, it kind of scrolled off didn't it? Hold on, let me put it up again...
There we go, perfect. See now, THIS painting was like a cross between Tim Burton and Edward Gorey, though of course Picasso preceded both of them, so it's not an apt comparison at all, really. But I think we can tease out their influences here, a sort of seminal piece for future macabre art - a visual manifesto for depicting pale-skinned children backgrounded by a stark, sombre, and yes - pallid - moon. Pallidity being an essential quality in all things macabre.
And anyway it's ghostly and twisted and imaginative and frankly I didn't get that impression from any of the other paintings, mired as they were in the 16th and 17th centuries, poor things. Of course I guess I could talk about the obvious maternal sublimation in the seated posture of the male child in relation to the domineering female presence of his (presumed) sister, whose two-facedness belies a disunity projected in opposition to the comparitive unity and wholeness of the male. I mean, I COULD do that, but it'd be a bloody lot of wank, wouldn't it?
Painting, The Second:
Dead Birds
by
Pablo Picasso
Yes, this painting was also by Picasso (who, though there were paintings by Goya and Dali and other good artists, was by far the most interesting and innovative and, frankly, modern - Dali, my old love, now strikes me as a bit too transparently egoistic). It was nice, cubist, and.. well, I think it would really look good on my wall next to the giant oriental fan.
Painting, the Third:
The Table (Still Life with Rabbit)
by
Joan Miró
This painting appeared in a section dedicated, amazingly, to food. Apparently, Spanish people eat a lot of dead animals. The reason this painting is included here is because of the tripartite symbolic content of the three animals it figures: the fowl is the father, who observes all of the vast, resplendent -- wait for it -- tableau of creation, with his one watchful, unblinking eye. The fish is the holy spirit, because it points always towards the heavens and suffuses everything with a vague, unidentifiable odour. And, finally, the rabbit is the Son, because he kind of looks angry and I think if Christ were around right now he'd be pretty pissed off too.
And that basically concludes the more or less first installation of ANDREW'S ARTSY ARTNESS! Since I also went to the MOMA, and because this post is getting pretty long, my next post will be about that. Tata for now! (This is the official trendy ARTSY farewell.)
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